Protection systems life safety

Where water will create a serious fire or personnel hazard, a suitable nonwater automatic extinguishing system should be considered. Penetrations through fire-rated floor, ceiling, and wall assemblies by pipes, conduits, bus ducts, cables, wires, air ducts, pneumatic tubes and ducts, and similar building service equipment should be protected in accordance with NFPA 101 , Life Safety Code. All floor openings should be sealed or curbed to prevent liquid leakage to lower floors. Door assemblies in 1 -hour rated fire barriers should be y4-hour rated. Door assemblies in 2-hour rated fire barriers should be 1 V2-hour rated. 

Each year, statistics on causes and occupancies of fires and deaths resulting from fire are compiled and published. NFPA sponsors seminars on the Life Safety Codes, National Electrical Code, industrial fire protection, hazardous materials, transportation emergencies, and other related topics. NFPA also conducts research programs on delivery systems for public fire protection, arson, residential fire sprinkler systems, and other subjects. NFPA publications include National Fire Codes Annual, Fire Protection Handbook, Fire Journal and Fire Technology. 

Review of design and construction plans, drawings, and specifications for life safety systems, fire protection systems, access, water supplies, processes, and hazardous materials and other fire and life safety issues... 

First, the importance of learning lessons from past process safety incidents is highlighted in Section 3.2. The subsequent section presents preliminary hazard review procedure, risk matrix, what-if method, plot plan and layout review, pressure relief system review and fire safety design aspects. Section 3.4 presents PHA techniques and procedures hazards and operability analysis (HAZOP), failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA), instrumented protective system (IPS) design, fault trees, event trees, layer of protection analysis (LOPA) and finally SIS life eyele. The importanee of revision of PSI is highlighted in Seetion 3.5. 

NFPA 130 specifies fire protection and life safety requirements for undeiground, surface, elevated fixed guideway transit and passenger rail systems including stations, tramways, vehicles, vehicle maintenance and storage areas. 

NFPA 68, Explosion Protection by Deflagration Venting NFPA 69, Standard on Explosion Prevention Systems NFPA 70, National Electrical Code NFPA 70E, Standard for Electrical Safety in the Workplace NFPA 101, Life Safety Code... 

This test method was developed as a result of need for flammability standard for carpets and rugs to protect the public against fire hazards [52]. Consequently, several carpet systems were tested by this standard [52-54]. This standard test method (ASTM E 648) is specified for the classification of the interior floor finish in buildings in the NFPA 101 Life Safety Code [55] ... 

Fires in or on offshore wind turbines and substations 33 CER Chapter 1, Subchapter N, Part 145, Fire-Fighting Equipment NEPA, Codes and Standards (e.g., NFPA 12—Standard on Carbon Dioxide Extinguishing Systems) NFPA 850 RP for Fire Protection for Electric Generating Plants DNV-OS-J201(2009)—Offshore Substations for Wind Farms (Section 6) Safety of Life at Sea Provisions GL Wind Technical Note Certification of Fire Protection Systems for Wind Turbines, Rev. 2,2009 ed. BS EN 13565-2 2009—Fixed Firefighting Systems... 

Provisions of life safety codes address many aspects of a building. There are properties of interior finishes, size, number and location of exits, exit distance, protection of exit routes from fire and smoke, alarm systems, emergency lighting, signage for exit routes, compartmentation, construction type, horizontal and vertical openings, extinguishing systems, and other factors. The discussion below addresses some of these provisions. For details, refer to the standards. 

OSHA deals with fire protection from an employee safety standpoint, and many of the points covered in the OSHA standard are solid management practices for property safety as well. Subpart E, Means of Egress, is taken from NFPA 101-1970, the Life Safety Code. The emphasis of this subpart is on protecting the employee once a fire has started. It informs the employer what to do to protect workers during the fire by addressing egress methods, automatic sprinkler systems, fire alarms, emergency action plans, and fire prevention plans. 

K Reacton Redurtdant fire protection safety class equipment not providod. Lade of ooctqrant life safety itcms-iated stairs, multiple exits, etc., lack of automatic fire suppression systems, redundant fire protection em, liquid rutbofi conliol in the 107-A diesel dike, floor drains artd storm drains. Are (continued)... 

For example, the National Five Protection Association s Life Safety Code, NFPA 101, may require, among other factors detectors for smoke and products of combustion automatic and manual audible and visible alarms lighted exit signs designated, alternate, properly lit exit paths adequate spacing for personnel at the end of the exit path proper hardware for doors and emergency power systems. Obviously, much more is needed than merely warnings. ... 

Life safety system A system designed to protect fife and property, such as emergency lighting, fire alarms, smoke exhaust and ventilating fans, and site security. 

The opportunity to test fire protection systems under real situations is, thankfulfy, a rare event in most organizations. Consequently, risk determination is difficult and the best assessment can only be an approximation of future outcomes. Nevertheless, assessments and approximations are critical factors in setting standards and measuring performance. To position a fire extinguisher on a wall and expect some untrained employee to use the device is unacceptable. To have the extinguisher, maintain it, and not expect it to be used to protect life and property is nonsense. The well conducted safety audit will discover the strengths and weaknesses in the system and provide a blueprint for any action plans necessary for improvement. 

The true benefits of an effective Safety Management System have to do with saving human life and protecting the environment. Of course, there is no way in which an objective financial value can be placed on these benefits. Nevertheless, safety is considered by most managers to be an effective investment. The basic idea is that if a facility operates with integrity, i.e., it operates in the way that it was meant to operate, then all the facets of the operation discussed above will improve correspondingly. Conversely, a failure in one area will lead to deterioration in the others. Therefore the actions taken to improve safety will improve profitability. 

Safety instrumented system (SIS) SIS is meant to prevent, control, or mitigate hazardous events and take the process to a safe state when predetermined conditions are violated. An SIS can be one or more SIFs, which is composed of a combination of sensors, logic solvers, and final elements. Other common terms for SISs are safety interlock systems, emergency shutdown (ESD) systems, and safety shutdown systems (SSDs). So, SIS is used as a protection layer between the hazards of the process and the public. SIS or SIF is extremely important when there is no other non-instrumented way of adequately eliminating or mitigating process risks. As per recommendations of standards lEC 61511 2003 (or ANSI/ ISA-84.00.01-2004), a multi-disciplinary team approach following the safety life cycle, conducts hazard analysis, develops layers of protections, and implements an SIS when hazardous events cannot be controlled, prevented, or mitigated adequately by non-instrumented means. 

With the introduction of safety standards lEC 61508 and 61511 (for process industries), there is a defined need for proper implementation of safety systems embedded into the main system. The safety life cycle has various phases. Phases 1 and 2 have been discussed at length in previous chapters (Chapter VI and Chapter VII and to a certain extent in Chapter IX). In this part, detailed discussions have been presented to include Phases 3—7, that is, from safety-related systems (SRSs) to modifications. This has been done purposefully so that prior to looking at the detailed implementation part of the standard, readers need to have some knowledge of the safety instrumented system (SIS), safety integrity level (SIL), and their implementation in various instrumentation components. So, this part of the discussions in conjunction with previous chapters will complete the topic of lEC 61508/61511. Safety instrumentation cannot be complete without discussions on explosion protection. With reference to lEC 60079-(0,10,14,15,17, etc.) and NEC (497,499,70, etc.), electrical area, classification of plant, explosion protection, etc. also have been included as part of this chapter to make the system complete in all respects. In view of this, these are presented in two sections. Section 1 for lEC implementation and Section 2 for explosion protection. 

Automatic sprinklers are particularly effective for life safety because, they warn of the existence of fire and, at the same time, apply water to the burning area (Hisley, 2003). Standard sprinklers will typically detect a fire much later than a smoke or heat detector. Therefore, a combination of a detection/alarm system and suppression system is a dependable method of protection. 

In the built environment, several systems and approaches to fire prevention and protection are employed. There are two basic categories of systems that are employed passive systems and active systems. Many of these systems are invisible to the untrained eye and remain unrecognized for their contribution. Others make their presence very evident once they have functioned, and either alerts occupants to an emergency or functions to suppress a fire. Also of great importance is fire prevention, which incorporates a combination of education of the occupants, as well as conscientious choices about how we interact with fuel, heat, and oxygen. It is important that any person responsible for the fire and life safety of a school obtain a copy of the Fire Protection Handbook from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). This is a primary resource for fire and life safety in the built environment and has chapters on almost every topic related to fire prevention and suppression. 

Coastal structmes are constructed to protect life and property against storm sm-ges, to combat erosion and/or to create (often artificial) beaches for recreational pm-poses, and to preserve the natural environment. However, the absolute safety of an area or structme is nearly impossible to achieve. Therefore, it is much better to speak about the probabihty of failure (or safety) of a certain protection system. To implement this concept, all possible causes and outcomes of failure have to be analyzed. This concept is actually being developed for breakwaters and the dike and dime design, mostly in the Netherlands (see, www.enwinfo.nl).The fault tree is a handy tool for this aim. In the fault tree all possible modes of failure of elements, which can eventually lead to the failure of a structure section and to inundation are included. They can also badly affect the behavior of the structure, even if the latter is properly designed on the whole. Although all categories of... 

Fire-fighting accessibility to building s interior includes access to the building itself as well as access to the interior of the building. Spaces in which fire-fighting access and operations are restricted because of architectural, engineering, or functional requirements should be provided with effective protection. A complete automatic sprinkler system is often the best solution, providing both life safety and property protection. 

These standards present a similar overall safety cycle and system life-cycle approach as in lEC 61508 with more in-depth details at each stage compared to lEC 61508. lEC 60964 covers the identification of the required safety function applicable to power plants, and lEC 61226 provides system categorization for different types of safety functions. The SIS design is then covered by lEC 60987 for hardware design and lEC 60880 for software design. IAEA 50-C-D now NS-R-1 covers the overall Safety Design, 50-SG-Dl gives the Classification of Safety Functions, 50-SG-D3 covers all Protection Systems, and 50-SG-D8 provides the requirements for the Instrumentation and Control Systems. 

There are currently about 1000 systems in use in the UK that use water mist to flood a compartment when a fire breaks out. There is some debate regarding the effectiveness of these systems for life safety. In common with all flood systems these can be fitted to protect the whole compartment or just specific fire risks within the compartment. These systems are currently used in both domestic and industrial applications often as a compensatory feature to enable normal design parameters to be increased. There is currently no British Standard for their design or application. 

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